TIRANA, Jan. 20 – A Tirana court has denied bail to members of a suspected criminal syndicate accused of moving and processing cocaine from Latin America to Germany via Albania.
Last week, police busted a major drug lab in Elbasan, and arrested several people, including the grandson of the communist dictator who ruled Albania with an iron fist for four decades.
They are accused with belonging to an international criminal ring that smuggled cocaine from Colombia to western Europe.
Ermal Hoxha, 40, faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence if convicted on charges of drug trafficking and processing.
A further eight Albanians and two Colombians have also been arrested.
Hoxha is the eldest grandson of Enver Hoxha, who governed Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985 — five years before a student revolt overthrew the country’s isolationist communist regime.
The arrests followed a raid on a cocaine-processing laboratory in central Albania, where police seized 120 kilograms of the drug, cash and weapons.
An Albanian-born German woman related to one of the arrested is also wanted by police. She is believed to live in Germany, which initiated the investigation for some months before asking Albanian law-enforcement authorities step in last month.
